Wednesday, 9 June 2010

Please sir, can I have some more?

It always amazes foreign visitors to our humble abode that the School day starts at 9am and finishes at 3.30pm.

"Where do ze children go for lunch?" is the usual squawk in a variety of accents, followed by a look of total bewilderment when informed that our schools have kitchens and the ungrateful bastards are fed on site.

Today, George Osborne announced that free school meals are to be abolished and half a million children will have to make alternative arrangements. These children belong to families earning less than £307 a week. To put that into perspective, that is 5 pairs of Nike Trainers, a PS3 and some games or 25 packets of fags and 20 Dominoes Pizzas. A week.

Now, the cost to you and I of a free school meal is around £2.05 a day or £40 a month per child. For half a million children. A quarter of a billion pounds a year in fact, spent subsidising "the poor".

Nobody starves in this country. Nobody dies of malnutrition, in fact the greatest problem we have is the very opposite. Waddling heaps of nylon football shirted congealed blubber blocking the pavements and putting up the price of airline seats.

I'm not a heartless bastard but I really do think the responsibility of nourishing your child rests with you, the parents (or in the case of most of south London, parent in the singular). It isn't hard. I was raised on a peanut butter sandwich, a banana and a home made flapjack for lunch for ten years. No fizzy drink. No crisps. No designer yoghurt or cheese strings with Wayne Rooney on the cover. Presented to me every morning in an old Ice Cream plastic box and expected to be returned, empty the same evening. It was usually empty by 10am and I survived. I had a decent meal at 6pm every day - gasp - sat at a table - with a knife and fork, did my homework and went to bed.

I simply cannot believe that HALF A MILLION children are so desperately starved in this country that I am expected to feed them. It seems bizarre that the very same children eating £40 a month of free food are the very same ones shoving £10's worth of KFC down their bloated faces on a Saturday night washed down by a gallon of purple sugar gas.

I have an idea. Work out what weight a child should be at a certain age/height. If the child is under that, offer the parents a free school meal option. We do it Africa after all. If the child is undernourished, then OK, we should nourish it whilst educating the parent(s). But offering a quarter of a billion pound of free food to the rotund offspring of feckless adults really needs to stop.

My favourite idea is simply to release a live tiger into primary schools. That'll sort the fat kids out once and for all

My kids' school doesn't have a kitchen. Auntie Marvo spoils the little bastards and makes their lunch. I don't. I tell them the night before that if their lunch isn't made and boxed ready for school they go without. But perhaps I'm a heartless bastard.

However, they actually LIKE making the pack-up. And they eat it all. Fuck, how much is a loaf of bread, some butter, and a jar of marmite anyway? And that'll feed two for lunch for a fortnight. The water is free at the point of delivery, and you can use the bottle for years.

I'm sure that the "Tiger in the class" solution will have the do- gooders bleating in anguish - but, if you think about it, it's an excellent solution.

It'll motivate kids to eat healthily and take up more sport - running in particular I imagine, it even deals with the eekwalitee fing, because you don't even need to be the fastest runner in class, you just need to be faster than one other kid.

Oooooo!!! First it was school milk now school dinners. I went to a prep school up until age 11. My dad paid fees. He also paid for school dinners which were uniformly vile and after many complaints from me (eating lumps of fat did make me vomit but of course I became adeopt at hiding such rubbish)I started taking sandwiches and going to the chip shop at lunch time. And I left home having had a cooked breakfast. I was thin, coz I was growing and running around a lot. these days the running around a lot seems not to happen (at school and at home). Whist I can see your point there will always be kids who only ever have one hot meal and that is a school dinner. You can only educate their parents with a few strokes of the cane as they do not respond to letters or phone calls and are likely to puch a teacher in the gob if they suggest giving up a can of stella to pay for a school dinner.

Holby - DofB is correct, the existing scheme remains unchanged, it is only the proposed extension to an additional 600,000 pupils planned by Labour this year that has been scrapped, mind you, that would have cost us £125m pa, so no bad thing. In principle though, I agree totally with your argument; my experience as a kid was pretty much the same as yours - although I was particularly impressed by one of my mates who at 13 decided to make a decent home-made pizza every night & flog off portions to the rest of us the next day - needless to say, he's done rather well for himself since :)

And let us not forget that the 'Tiger in the Playground' scheme would do it's small part in the preservation of what is an endangered species (tigers not fat kids). Lets see the Gaurdianistas complain about that!!!

OH is another thatcherite on steroids, the glibs are just the same bastards
said...

The unfortunate fact OH is that many people after being turned into selfish freaks, only in me, me, me, terms and don't feed their children properly - that is a fact OH and yes we do have malnutrition in this country.

Many kids barely survive on what the parents give them. so what is your answer to that OH?

Let the poorest children suffer for the rest of their lives?

Put them in care where they will suffer even greater abuse?

a free school meal comes from taxes payed for by parents past and future in most cases, it means the poorest and most neglected children don't suffer weakend teeth and bones, stunted growth and damaged internals, things which may cost a fair amount in the future.

a small price to pay.

Sure such parents should not exist, but they do, you see most mothers now are also corporate slaves and have little time for the children, the Thatcher years fed the selfish ideology, where kids are just an inconvinience that should be farmed out and forgotten about, numero uno was all that mattered as it destroyed our industries with the help of labour and the unions that lead to great poverty and malnourished children.

shure you see quite a few fat kids another spin off from the both parents working situation where the kids are just told to help themselfs and mummy can't be arsed after working all day, kids are no longer the priority.

Also after you have sptted the fat kids look closly and you will see many skinny ill looking ones, you just have to go to the right areas to find them, former mining towns and steal works, car plants and general industry areas.

Then you will find the kids that desparately rely on a free school meal, would you take their meal away from in front of them?

So yes OH you are a selfish heartless bastard.

Put it this way OH, I used to know a kid who would come to school and for his meal which he payed for from the money his parents gave him, all he could get was a bowl of rice - that's it!

He used to put vinager on it just to add some free flavour.

His teath were missing enamal, he was stunted and skinny and often sick. that kid would have loved a free school meal, a meal just like the other kids, he was not alone either their are countless in each scool in the inner cities and beyond.

So please OH take you head out of your selfish ignorant arse and think about who would really suffer!

Now let's just hope you don't suffer a breakdown and be at the mercy of the state, especially not an OH or vicious tory state!

Besides its all bollocks, the Tories are playing the Tory game so the Labnour party can offer the poor free meals and the whole red blue captive shit gets cycled once again.

It is the Tories deliberately trying to polarise politics, make enemies of the poor and drive them into the arms of Labour, that is all it will do.

Because to both parties this is just posturing, on the real issues they are the same, and puppets to the EU.

Why don't you bang your drum about the billions we give away each year to the third world aid scam?

When I was a lad...blah blah...I never had school dinners but used to walk home at lunchtime. It was one and a half miles from my home to school. I walked to school in the morning, back home at lunchtime. There was just enough time to get home, eat something and walk back. After school we could stay for after school athletics or other sports on the school playing field, and then I'd walk home. A minimum of six miles a day.I was thin as a rake and always hungry.If you told that to kids these days they'd never believe you, etc etc.

I quite like the tiger idea, although they do a nice line in foxes in east London, and there's loads of wild cats loose in the countryside.

When I was at school very few kids got free School dinners.Mainly because most folk who could have qualified didn't claim them.They paid up.Pride you see.No fear,no pride,no shame anymore.All these attributes will have to be re learnt.From the individual level to the nation as a whole if things are to get better.If not,then welcome to the Thunder Dome.

"These children belong to families earning less than £307 a week. To put that into perspective, that is 5 pairs of Nike Trainers, a PS3 and some games or 25 packets of fags and 20 Dominoes Pizzas. A week."

Is that really what you think a wage of £307 goes on for a family with kids? What about electric and gas at exorbitant rates, mortgage, prescriptions, glasses, dentists fees (if you can find one)weekly food shop for a family, petrol, insurance and road tax or equally expensive public transport, school uniforms, or clothes in general for growing kids? Putting abit aside for a weeks holiday etc etc

I thought you were in favour of people getting off their arses and working, having a 'wage' suggests thats the case, so why can't the govt provide a free meal at school to help at at £1 a head?

Agreed re returning the responsibility for providing meals to parents (who may delegate preparation to their children).

Also agreed that there will probably still be a need to schools to provide free meals to undernourished children - whether because their parents really ARE too poor to buy food (unlikely), too bad at parenting to feed their children properly or (even) just plain neglectful of them.

I only hope that the proportion of neglectful parents (those ones who don't bother feeding their children in the expectation that the state will pay) doesn't rise - that would be an example of the law of unintended consequences.

Same for free meals at hospitals . If you were at home you'd have to feed yourself, so why should you get a free meal in hospital? It doesn't need to be profit making but paying for your food shouldn't be much to ask if you're getting free health care.

Oi - I've worked with tigers (in the dim and distant past) and I know they're fussy about what they eat. Stuff that tastes of chemicals and smells of electrical shit would be not be favourite. Anyway, tigers are nice animals and shouldn't be confused about dindins. The tastiest ones are always the hardest to catch.

9AM till 3PM not here in Thailand it ain't, my grand daughter is two years and six months old goes to a good private school starts at 8-30 finishes at 3-30. All the kids here wear a uniform even at university oh by the way no welfare here and education is not free and no fucker plays hookey. So all the scum pumping out kids and forget if you can't feed 'em don't breed 'em in the UK be afraid be very afraid as I have seen the future and your not part of it.

Tiger tiger burning brightin the playground, what a fright!Hear the screaming calls for 'Sir!'(hasn't it got lovely fur?)Run my lovelies, run awayand live to write another day.Come on Bunter, sprint or dieor you'll end up a tasty pie,like the ones you enjoy stuffing.No use slowing down or puffing!Watch the tiger spring and pounce,devouring Bunter, every ounce.This lesson Mr Darwin taught, the lesson being *Don't get caught!"

Cloud Cuckoo Land said..." "If you were at home you'd have to feed yourself, so why should you get a free meal in hospital?"

... Because you have spent 50 years paying through the nose for the fucking NHS perhaps? These people who earn £307 also pay the taxes which pay for the 'free' school meals."

Are you joking or are you a chav? Because you've paid some tax then you're entitled to get everything free. What abot the fact that you're getting the doctors & the nurses & the hospital & the medication for free. Or that your child is getting a school and teachers and text books and - quite possibly - a laptop for free. Not enough ... they should be feeding you as well because "you've paid for it!" Give me a break.

"Because you've paid some tax then you're entitled to get everything free"

No just a meal which is part of the NHS budget which I pay for.

"What abot the fact that you're getting the doctors & the nurses & the hospital & the medication for free."

What about it? I fucking paid for that too.

"Or that your child is getting a school and teachers and text books and - quite possibly - a laptop for free. Not enough ... they should be feeding you as well because "you've paid for it!" Give me a break."

Children don't get free laptops at school you fucking retard, they do not even get free text books, the books are loaned to them for the subject and are returned at the end of year, do you only live in a world which is informed by rants in the Daily Mail?

.............the parents (or in the case of most of south London, parent in the singular).

Fandabeedozee!

If the popualtion of the UK wasn't heading very quickly towatds 70 million aided and abetted by non-anglo-saxon or Celtic types from the Dark continent and beyond, let alone those thieving cunts from Eastern Yurp, then teh NHS would be able to be funded from NI contributions and we wouldn't have a fat cunt like John Prescott banging on about not being able to build in back gardens. That fat fucker made the Rothschild look fucking reasonable this morning on TODAY.

Oddly capitalist America, which has a much more stringent, parsimonious and stingy benefits system than Europe, has a bigger obesity epidemic than the UK.

So much for the right-wing being better than the left-wing as far as health is concerned.

I would love to bend you over and dildo-fuck your flabby arsehole with a length of sandstone or pumice until you'd lost enough blood to require a transfusion you filthy old cunt. Once I track you down IRL it's only a matter of time before you're painfully and literally buggered.

Fucking good, before going to public school I went to the local primaryFree fucking milk that I was forced to drink followed by a fucking huge three course lunch that I was also forced to eat on pain of a slappingI didnt want either having had a good breakfast and knowing that when I got home my grandfather/mother/grandmother would shove a huge pile of protein in front of meFucking "everybody is the same" socialist pricksWhen my mother had the sense to take me away from the state system we could eat as we pleased

Actually it wasnt freeI had to take "dinner money"And present it in an envelopeSo some cunt in a town hall made the poor kids feel bad because their parents couldnt pay and then the rest of us had to pay for shite that we didnt need nor want and be confused as to why at home a mid day meal was lunch, supper was the last meal of the day or a late snack and dinner was for adults unless it was a special occassionI hate Labour, although I would punish fuck Dianne Abbott

So you paid for the NHS meal did you? And if they gave every patient a free plasma screen TV then that would be your "entitlement" too would it? No wonder we have a national debt increasing at £1m per hour with chavs like you thinking you should get whatever you want for free coz you pay some tax!

Text books ... just checked and - yep - none of my four children had to pay a single penny for their text books. They were all purchased from the school budget, I didn't have to purchase a single one. Last time I checked that met the definition of free!

Children don't get free laptops do they not? Better tell all the parents who have received theirs to give them back then. They obviously didn't check with you first to see if the free laptop & home internet scheme was genuine or not!!

"So you paid for the NHS meal did you? And if they gave every patient a free plasma screen TV then that would be your "entitlement" too would it?"

Classic, invent a ridiculous strawman argument to knock down.

Because a plasma TV and a meal are like the same thing right?

Tell me how exactly are people IN HOSPITAL, most of whom are BED RIDDEN, and some of whom are TERMINALLY ILL, supposed to provide their own meals?

Meals are a part of NHS service for a reason cock knocker.

"Text books ... just checked and - yep - none of my four children had to pay a single penny for their text books. They were all purchased from the school budget, I didn't have to purchase a single one. Last time I checked that met the definition of free!"

Do your children own them? No they do not, in which case they have not been given them for free - or is this another wonderful suggestion that schools should not provide books? Perhaps pupils should bring their own tables and chairs too, fucking tit.

"Children don't get free laptops do they not? Better tell all the parents who have received theirs to give them back then. They obviously didn't check with you first to see if the free laptop & home internet scheme was genuine or not!!"

Is that children being given free laptops at school as you claimed? Er no its not, its something totally unrleated to schools or to this post, you really specialise in the strawman debating technique don't you? You fucking cunt batter.

Beast:Although harsh for the kids involved that 'Shame' was a great motivator for the majority not to go begging unless well in the shit.The visit by the Nit Nurse was the same.The 'Shame' of having Nits prevented Nits spreading better than any lotion or potion.I liked my school dinners and at 25p a week they were fucking good value.The mash potato was the main reason I kept going :)

If you cannot afford to have children, don't! That is one reason why I do not have a mistress. Take some responsibility.

And it is actually a good idea to tax 'child benefit' or whatever it is called now, to pay for meals. This puts the responsibility back with the parents. I'm fucking sick of having to pay money just to keep little Wayne and Chlamydia in fizzy blue pop and Ritalin. No, fuck that, bring in eugenices. And pay some dirty fucking scrote-bag to come round and wipe my arse instead of drinking from the blue WKD flavoured teat of the state.

mmm this seems to be about freeschool meals and not the broader issue of why kids spend too much in front of the pravda screen information devices.

Lets assume that "civil society" idea still holds muster , giving growing kids a decent and balanced meals is a good idea , there is evidence that poor diet causes ill health (no brainer) and the slightly more diffciult one of brain/learning developement . These ideas were established at the turn of the last century on childrens diets , so seems a bit slow to not recognise them now .

If you provide on site meals at schools you need cateres and kitchens , this inturn requires purchasing and logistics .Now if Mr Gove has looked at this seen COST in big letters , I wonder if he has thought that freeschool meals would cut all the beaucracy cost of managing the haves and have nots .Simplyfying it may give some cost savings .

Commercial caterers should have little problem in sourcing ingredients to deliver the £2.50 limit , but then the argument is should it be on the public payroll . Given dinner personal dont work when school holidays are on , and provide useful local part time work , a private sector employer may not do much better in terms of providing a service .

But then if the somthing as small beer as school meals is being trialed when a drastic reduction in bloated high state employee wages is whats needed , Mr Gove may be sniffing the wrong pile of doo doo .

Health in schools perhaps has equal footing with curriculum , I doubt if you cann apply the waste mantra to essential functions , good accounting always then yes , but if you cant determin wether the 100k cost of the legs akimbo diversity issues lesbian theatre companies cost to schools is slightly less important than childrens nutrition and health , it isnt really a good start as to how whiteall is whispering in his ear in the search for cost reductions . Try looking at in terms of priorities and you might see why a public policy dissconnect is twinned with this issue. The expense may not be with the end service but in the varous Labour cronie third way constructs and gate keepers .

They should also buy British (organic) and help that way , with exceptions to pasta and fruit bowl , soon cure set aside payments and tell the EU we want a huge reabte .

When I first left home, I lived in one room and can remember pulling bread out of the bin three days after I threw it away because I was that hungry.

I didn't dream of having kids, or new Nikes or a PS2. I concentrated 100% on making sure I got out of that situation quickly before I lost too much weight and the only pair of shoes I had wore out.

Had I been subsidised and had my rent paid for me by the state, chances are I'd still be there and the State would be paying for my six kids.

I'm not. It isn't. I have lived in EVERY pay band and actually have little or no need for money anymore. Hence no adverts on this blog. The hands that type this blog have cleaned pub toilets, cleaned windows, delivered milk and chopped frozen liver and they did it BECAUSE there were no state handouts.

We've survived 2 million years without free school meals for those unable to pay the gym subscription or buy dominoes take aways (delivered). We WILL survive but first we have to understand what is required to survive. Just ask the third world, they know. and the really smart ones are waiting in Calais for a shot at the jobs Lee and Donna can't be arsed to do because "it ain't werf it, innit"

The Beasts family are pretty wealthy but my maternal great grandmother walked to school in bare feet and ate frozen turnips on the way (Yes I know it sounds like the 4 yorkshire men) she ended up owning a chain of shopsThere isnt anybody in this country who cant afford to make a decent healthy packed lunch for 50p or less if shown a few recipesIf they cant then they should be sterilised and have their children put up for adoption (although not by queers)Why should I pay to feed some chavs mini chav?I could feed a familiy of four for at least two days on one chicken and some veg or Bovril and a cheap cut of meat with carrots and spuds for about £10Lentil dahl for lunchPorridge for breakfastSnails off your garden wallThats what should be taught to dole scum I will relish the day when all this dross dies off

The most interesting aspect of this thread is that OH and his windowlickers are no longer merely spouting their bile against dole scum but are now targetting working taxpayers.

You've stopped tubthumping about benefits addiction and the culture of entitlement and instead you've become that horrendous Brummie character of Harry Enfield - the one who's always yelling about being "considerably richer than yow".

Still, it's inevitable that no-one will look down on a man who earns £307 p.w. quite as much as the man who earns £308 p.w.. It's rather embarrassing to see the jockeying for position by poorly-educated poorly-paid unskilled trash like OH.

Patients (or their loved ones) could pay for their meals like they would be doing whilst they were at home. Not that difficult to get your head round is it really. Why should the state feed you whilst you are receiving free health care?

Text books are free. To argue otherwise is just utterly dumb. I don't need to own one because the state are providing them for free. So for something to qualify as free you actually have to have ownership as well. Wow .. the state really are tight fisted aren't they! Why don't they provide me with toothpaste & toothbrushes as well ... after all I've paid my taxes.

The scheme I told you about has given hundreds of thousands of pupils free laptops (I know, I helped a lot of them apply) ... how is that different to what I told you?! And FYI, many of the secondary schools also provided free laptops for their pupils anyway ... but this wouldn't qualify as free in your mind as they don't actually have outright possession of them.

Still, you've paid your taxes, so whatever the state provides should be your entitlement in perpetuity.

I've happily spent a number of years earning considerably less than £307 per week. Good thing no one told me i was poor or i might have got it into my head that i was entitled to other peoples money.

When people have to give up their colour tvs with cable subscriptions to all the sports channels then i might start to believe that they are really poor. Until that day they can stick their pathetic sob stories up their backsides.

I've actually dug out Cess pits for a meal but i've never sponged of the tax payer. Fuck the lazy whining idle scum bastards who do. Let them feel some real hunger for once.

The poor staff couldn't manage to produce anything that vaguely interested most of the kids and the chippie around the corner and the McD joint saw a colossal jump in sales. The received wisdom was that even the freemeal folk voted with their feet.

I do believe that it was destructive for the school - although I heven't looked into it I'd bet truancy leapt up and tons more garbage had to be cleared from the neighbourhood's pavements and front gardens.

Perhaps the all pervading Tesco should be given some school contracts as they are always braying smugly about their charidee efforts? Let's face it - they're unlikely do a worse job.

Councils seem to screw up whatever they're pointed at. Cameron's localism agenda in the hands of the municipal morons? -<>-

Labours definition of "poverty" often revolves around the % of children receiving free school meals so no doubt their plot to extend the scheme was intended to provide 'proof' that poverty had increased as soon as they had been defeated.

As for free meals in hospital, evidently the state does regard them as 'entitlements' since pensioners who spend more than a few days in hospital have their pensions docked because they are deemed to be in receipt of 'hospitality'.

@OH " I concentrated 100% on making sure I got out of that situation quickly before I lost too much weight and the only pair of shoes I had wore out.Had I been subsidised and had my rent paid for me by the state, chances are I'd still be there and the State would be paying for my six kids."

Labour leadership race a bit of let down so far , I think they should revert to a real roman gladatorial system , any rumours that Caesar fixed it would be completely untrue , because in the name of fairness and equality I would ensure thumbs down sign was given every time ,until there were none of them left to enjoy a night in let alone form a political party to ruin this country again.

presume fawkes missed Osbournes speech in which he gave way to Ian Austin saying "he was interested to know where his friend the Hon member for Kircaldy and Fife was"

If Labour strategy is to start firing off at high unemployment due to Tory cuts , hence ignorant attitude they still have when taking questions on there economic record ,CW thinks it will be slim meal indeed , might as well wait until they elect there leader , but bloody woefull so far from them .

Days before the start of the world cup, the gardener of the two frail and unarmed Afrikaner women who were tortured to death on March 6 last your has been found guilty of their violent and sadistic murders by a South African Court.

The court found that the gardener Joseph Hlongwane, 22, had tortured to death 76 year old Alice Lotter and her daughter Helen (57). No explanation was given by the gardener as to why he had displayed such extreme cruelty, the torture had continued for at least three hours before the women died.

Warning: The following details, of extreme sexual violence, are particularly gruesome.

Mrs Alice Lotter died from multiple, deep stabbing wounds to her neck and throat; her daughter Helen, suffered 'severe, repeated, sharp trauma injuries to her lower body administered with knives and a broken beer bottle.' A post-mortem examination revealed that all of Helen’s front teeth were bashed out and that her entire body and face were ‘covered in severe bruises, chafing and stabbing wounds. During testimony from the coroner it was revealed that broken glass had been inserted into Ms Lotters genitals after which she had been savagely and repeatedly kicked in the groin. Her sexual organs internally and externally were extensively mutilated – some body parts including her cervix and uterus were completely missing:

Ms Lotter's breast had also been removed, and used to write the anti-white slogans such as "Kill the Boer" on the wall.

All this occurred whilst the women were still alive.

Very little of value was stolen from the victims during what the police had previously referred to as a "robbery"

when I get hospitalised my wife brings in food. I cannot eat that crap the hospital thinks is good enough for me.

I see Amazon has used copies of the unelected one's courage books from 1 penny. Ideal for wiping your arse with or perhaps for keeping warm next winter for those of you still able to light a fire. Stock up now eh?

Remember me? I'm the kid that sucked you off at King's Cross for a fiver. I'm not doing that again until you clean all that yellow smegma off from behind the head of your wrinkly semi-erection. Your cock is as bitter as your warped and twisted soul.

Bang on, Old. However, the problem is that the cretinous ingrates that are the children's parents DO NOT take responsibility for their kids. They're far too busy smoking fags, wearing burberry hats and drinking wife-beater. It's a hard life.

It is entirely possible that, if school meals weren't provided, the fat bletches wouldn't even get one good meal a day.

Of course, the remedy to this solution is not to devolve parental responsibility onto the State, it is to stop providing financial incentives to have children.

Then, the filthy fucking chavs wouldn't breed in the first place, because there'd be no money in it.

Thing is OH the food actualy tastes betterFuck the big chains, I buy my stuff from cockney traders and halal butchers, the food is ready to be cooked on the day as it should be, I dont want a green banana nor meat that is incased in plastic, my local muzzies sell cows feet , lamb shoulder, sheeps heads, mutton, proper english food from a bunch of wogs

I usually agree with OH, but on this one I can't help thinking this is a bit harsh.

Given that some parents are woeful and cannot be relied upon to feed their children well. I believe this would fall under one of the fundamental obligations of government - protection of life.

Surely if anything this type of benefit is far more preferable to handing out cash benefits which can be spent on fags and booze. If anything I would much prefer to see a system whereby cash benefits were virtually eliminated, provided you were willing to live in a hostel with 10 other families, whereby your only benefits were no council taxes and free basic cold food.

giving them a free council flat and allowing them to spend irrationally on consumer goods only expands the problem. Give them initiative to improve their situation themselves, hell they may even learn something.

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is it's justice; that is its morality.